Tabularia Sources écrites des mondes normands médiévaux Vivre des deux côtés de la Manche (Xe-XIIIe siècle) | 2011 Cross-Channel communication and the end of the ‘Anglo-Norman realm’: Robert fitzWalter and the Valognes inheritance La communication de part et d’autre de la Manche et la fin du « royaume anglo- normand » : Robert fils-Gautier et l’héritage de Valognes Daniel Power Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/tabularia/1452 DOI: 10.4000/tabularia.1452 ISSN: 1630-7364 Publisher: CRAHAM - Centre Michel de Boüard, Presses universitaires de Caen Electronic reference Daniel Power, « Cross-Channel communication and the end of the ‘Anglo-Norman realm’: Robert fitzWalter and the Valognes inheritance », Tabularia [Online], Vivre des deux côtés de la Manche (Xe-XIII e siècle), Online since 28 April 2011, connection on 30 April 2019. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/tabularia/1452 ; DOI : 10.4000/tabularia.1452 CRAHAM - Centre Michel de Boüard Cross-Channel communication and the end of the ‘Anglo-Norman realm’: 1 Robert i tzWalter and the Valognes inheritance La communication de part et d’autre de la Manche et la i n du « royaume anglo-normand » : Robert i ls-Gautier et l’héritage de Valognes Daniel Power Swansea University Department of History and Classics [email protected] Abstract: h e collapse of the ‘Anglo-Norman realm’ in 1204 placed the Anglo-Norman aristocracy in an uneviable position, as most of its members were forced to choose between keeping their English or their French lands. h e process of untangling the ties between the two countries in the ensuing decades has received little attention from historians. h e present article considers the evidence of communication at er 1204 between the English magnate Robert i tzWalter and French royal oi cials in Normandy, which was intended to resolve problems arising from charters that Robert and his wife Gunnor de Valognes had issued in favour of the priory of Notre-Dame-du-Pré before the collapse of the Angevin régime. h ese acts provide a revealing example of English interest and involvement in Norman af airs in the years following the Capetian annexation of Normandy, despite the continuing hostilities between the kings of England and France. Keywords: Robert i tzWalter, Notre-Dame-du-Pré, Gunnor de Valognes, Anglo-Norman aristocracy, Capetian annexation of Normandy, cross-Channel communication, England, Normandy, charter, forgery, the 13th century, royal oi cials, inheritance . Résumé : L’ef ondrement du « royaume anglo-normand » en 1204 a placé l’aristocratie anglo-normande dans une position intenable, car la plupart de ses membres ont été forcés de choisir entre conserver leurs terres anglaises ou françaises. Les manières de démêler les liens entre les deux pays dans les décennies qui suivirent ont reçu peu d’attention des historiens. Cet article examine la communication qui était destinée à résoudre les problèmes, après 1204, entre le magnat anglais Robert i tzWalter et les oi ciers royaux français en Normandie à partir du témoignage des chartes que Robert et sa femme Gunnor de Valognes avaient émises en faveur du prieuré de Notre-Dame-du-Pré avant l’ef ondrement du régime Plantagenêt. Ces actes 1. h e research for this article was generously supported by the British Academy. It is dedicated to Sir James Holt, whose research has revealed so much about Robert i tzWalter and his fellow barons. In the notes below, VCH = Victoria County History. Tabularia « Études », n° 11, 2011, p. 1-33, 28 avril 2011 http://www.unicaen.fr/mrsh/craham/revue/tabularia/print.php?dossier=dossier10&i le=01power.xml 2 Vivre des deux côtés de la Manche fournissent un exemple révélateur de l’intérêt anglais et de l’implication anglaise dans les af aires normandes dans les années postérieures à l’annexion capétienne de la Normandie, en dépit de la poursuite des hostilités entre les rois d’Angleterre et la France. Mots-clés : Robert i ls-Gautier, Notre-Dame-du-Pré, Gunnor de Valognes, communication trans-Manche, oi ciers royaux, Angleterre, Normandie, charte, faux, le XIIIe siècle, aristo- cratie anglo-normande, l’annexion capétienne de Normandie, héritage . h e fall of Normandy to King Philip Augustus of France in 1204 marked a decisive point in the history of both countries. Within a few short weeks, the Capetian king brought the ‘stif -necked’ duchy under his thumb 2, nearly a century and a half at er the Norman Conquest of England had i rst established a dynastic union between Normandy and England. As contemporaries recognised, the collapse of the duchy placed the Anglo-Norman aristocracy in a painful dilemma. Since 1066 a great many of its members had enjoyed a lifestyle divided between England and Northern France, holding estates on both sides of the English Channel and sharing a single Anglo-French culture. All of a sudden, Philip Augustus’ victory forced these landowners to choose between their lands on the Continent and in the British Isles. In England, King John issued a general command to royal oi cials to seize the estates of all Normans, probably in the summer of 1204 3. In Normandy, some redistribution was ef ected by the king of France, not least during his triumphal campaign through central Normandy in spring 1204, but he granted a period of grace in which landowners could do homage to him for their Norman lands, and it is likely that a full policy of coni scation was implemented in Normandy only from Easter 1205 onwards 4. It was one thing for each king to issue a general order to coni scate the lands of those who remained overseas; it was quite another to carry out these orders in practice. In both England and Normandy, royal oi cials struggled to establish what was to be seized by holding inquests and compiling lengthy lists of i efs 5; but since a number of landowners changed their minds about their decisions or managed to recover their lost lands by royal grace, any such lists must have quickly become out of date. h e inquests of Louis IX would later uncover a great many examples of mistaken or malicious coni scations by French royal oi cials 6. In England, political considerations 2. ‘cervicosa Normannia’: Stevenson , Coggeshall , p. 146, describing the duchy’s subjugation. 3. h e order is mentioned in hardy , Rotuli de oblatis , e.g. p. 334 (‘occasione generalis precepti facti de terris Normannorum’, 1205). For the coni scations of the ‘lands of the Normans’ in England, see moore , 2010. 4. Delaborde , Actes de Philippe Auguste , ii, nº 901; cf. History of William Marshal , ii ( Meyer , Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal ), ii, lines 12866-74. A general royal order for coni scation is mentioned in Grosse - Duperon and Gouvrion , Cartulaire de Fontaine-Daniel , no. LXIV. 5. E.g. Hardy , Rotuli de oblatis , p. 122-143; Book of Fees , passim ; Nortier , 1995, p. 55-68; Bouquet , Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , [hereat er RHF ], xxiii, p. 606-723, and Baldwin , Registres de Philippe Auguste , i (texte ). 6. ‘Querimoniæ Normannorum’, in RHF , xxiv, I, p. 1-74. http://www.unicaen.fr/mrsh/craham/revue/tabularia/print.php?dossier=dossier10&i le=01power.xml Cross-Channel communication… 3 meant that greater laxity was sometimes af orded to those from regions other than Normandy, such as Flanders, Ponthieu, or Brittany, or to certain social groups, such as clerics or widows; but royal indulgence of this type was both inconsistent and intermittent 7. In consequence, on both sides of the Channel there was great potential for confusion or dispute over the status of the property of Anglo-Norman landowners. h e Anglo-Norman aristocracy was ef ectively split down the middle, but many of its members attempted to maintain their interests on both sides of the sea. h e actual mechanics of separation have received little attention from historians, not least because most of the charters for the English and Norman aristocracy of the period remain unpublished and largely unanalysed. Yet this process is essential to our understanding of the absorption of Normandy into the kingdom of France and of the disintegration of the Anglo-Norman ‘realm’, which had dominated northwest European politics for nearly a century and a half. Much further research is still required, for instance, to explain why there were so few manifestations of pro-Angevin sentiment in the duchy at er 1204, especially during the Bouvines War of 1213-14. h e present article aims to cast light upon the twin processes of the separation of England and Normandy and the assimilation of Normandy into the Capetian realm. It draws upon a series of hitherto unpublished charters that reveal the contacts between Robert i tzWalter, one of the most famous magnates in medieval England, and a portion of his wife’s property in the Pays de Bray in northeast Normandy. h e texts reveal some of the means by which the Capetian baillis sought to control the duchy of Normandy in the early years of the French régime, and they furnish a revealing glimpse of the process of disengagement between the two countries. 1. Communications between England and Normandy at er 1204 In order to understand the documents in question, which all concerned the rights of the priory of Notre-Dame-du-Pré ( alias Bonne-Nouvelle) near Rouen, it is i rst necessary to consider the problems confronting the Capetian oi cials in Normandy. h e king of France’s baillis were hampered by their own ignorance of the province that had fallen under their sway. In order to administer Normandy ef ectively and fairly, they needed a good knowledge of the genealogies of each and every landed family in the duchy.